A taste of home, a journal of metaphor and muse, flavored with wit and watercolor

"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plain, spilling purple... ," Songs of the Pioneers song from TV show "Wagon Train." Dawn on the mythic Santa Fe Trail, New Mexico, looking toward Raton from Cimarron. -- Clarkphoto. A curmudgeon's old-fashioned newspaper column, cross-breeding metaphors and journalism and art, for readers in 150 countries.

Coffee Grounds

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Psalms for October

Psalm for Monday--Lord, help me to remember what is important and not to allow those who are not--the dishonest, the backbiters, the micromanagers, the control freaks, the trivial, the self important-- to interfere with my life and vision. Help me to help those who need help, to laugh, have fun, take risks, and to matter. May my actions thwart those whose only goals are selfish, and encourage those who are in need.

Psalm for Tuesday--Lord, be merciful to me a sinner, and forgive those who believe they sin not, the judgmental, the destructive, the fake, the pretenders, the disloyal, the two-faced, the insecure who feed on others' success and failures. Let not their negative spirits infect me, yeah even though they try to beset me, nor their penchant for rules and judgment against me and my students and friends and family. Strengthen me from my students' belief in the future, and in their imperfections and promise. Let me help teach them that risk and mistakes and other's judgments are not failure, but steps to happiness and success. Let me and them learn joy from adversity and the inherent goodness of most people.

Wednesday psalm: We've got about all the uncertainty we can take, Lord. So many people are downright angry and loud and afraid. What we need is to listen, to try to understand opposing views, and to look people squarely in the eyes. At midweek, help u remember that it starts with us, that if we want assurance, we have to be assuring, investing in the good of people. Don't make us blind to evil and injustice by a few people, but help us discover and share the good in most of the people we deal with, knowing that is the only thing that can defeat so much negativity. And, by the way, soothe us.

Silence

Meditation

Just out the window,
black silhouettes of trees
remind me of those
halcyon days with you,
when we climbed out of the
cellar toward enlightenment.
Now, at a glance, the wild
birds swing into view,
obscuring the real world
of young men dying
to get home, and the
snow that falls on
our brains stays solid - never
melting into springtime.
On the ferry, we sit and
compare notes as to whom
in life has suffered the most;
men, women, boys, or girls?
Suddenly, in a revelation, you
say it is the Buddha over on
Main, who sits on his plywood
altar, surrounded by plastic
flowers, subjected to all the
passersby, who have never had
a Zen thought of their own…
--K. Lawson Gilbert